Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy's correspondence with Oil and Gas companies and BlueFloat office opening: EIR release

Information requested

1. Could you supply all correspondence sent to and from Gillian Martin/her office and oil and gas companies, as well as minutes from meetings between her and oil and gas companies and briefings from them, from the last three months?

2. Could you supply all documentation held about Gillian Martin’s appearance helping to open a new office for the BlueFloat Energy-Renantis Partnership in Edinburgh on November 30 2023, between September 1 2023 and December 30 2023?

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

I have provided a response to each part of your request separately below and have outlined details of any exemptions applied to the information requested and/or materials related to the request.

1. Could you supply all correspondence sent to and from Gillian Martin/her office and oil and gas companies, as well as minutes from meetings between her and oil and gas companies and briefings from them, from the last three months?

An exception under Regulation Reg 10 (5) (a) [International Relations, Defence, National Security and Public Safety] of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception applies as disclosure would, or may would be likely to, substantially risk national security. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in release because of interest in open and transparent government. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in preventing harm to national security.

An exception under Regulation 10(5)(f) [Third Party Interests] of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception applies because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the confidentiality of information provided by third parties. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in release because of interest in open and transparent government. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in preventing harm to the interests of third parties.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs [Personal Information] applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1)of the Data Protection Act  2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

An exception under Regulation 12(5)(d) [Confidentiality of Proceedings] of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception applies because disclosure would, or would be likely to, substantially prejudice the confidentiality of discussions between the UK and Scottish Governments. This exemption is relevant here because some of the meetings in question were jointly between Scottish Government, UK Government and oil and gas companies. The application of Regulation 12(5)(d) is subject to the ‘public interest’ test. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in release because of interest in open and transparent government. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in disclosing information likely to compromise the confidentiality of a situation wherein an authority is exercising its statutory decision-making powers.

2. Could you supply all documentation held about Gillian Martin’s appearance helping to open a new office for the BlueFloat Energy-Renantis Partnership in Edinburgh on November 30 2023, between September 1 2023 and December 30 2023?

An exception under regulation 10(4)(d) [Material in the Course of Completion, Unfinished Documents,or Incomplete Data] applies to some of the information requested because it relates documents which have not been completed. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test' and, taking into account all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public favour lies in favour of upholding the exception.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) [Internal Communications] applies to some of the information requested because it relates to internal communications. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test' and, taking into account all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public favour lies in favour of upholding the exception.

An exception under regulation 10(5)(e) of the EIRs [Substantial Prejudice to Confidentiality of Commercial Information] applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception applies because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the confidentiality of commercial information provided by the third party and thus cause substantial harm to their commercial interests.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs [Personal information] applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202500446898 - Information released - Annex

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